A picture might help even more... we didn't want something that looked out of place, and I'm afraid larger trees would. We are surrounded on 3 sides by cattle fields, and acreage of feed crops on the other side,. We never have seen deer over here with the easy pickens' over there... the deer would have to cross the large cattle fields to get to our relatively small gardens, so I guess its not worth their effort and they just hang out where the huge acreage of crops are. We have, however, seen quail here and I'd like to continue to try and attract them. No turkeys or anything like that since they won't cross the cattle fields either and then we have cattle fencing all around us too (deer could jump over, but no deer). I took this picture the first year we were here. A larger farm was subdivided and this area used to have cattle on it, so the first year it was mostly hay and the grasses they eat, but the second year, the weeds really starting taking over. Here is a picture of the area. Some smaller fruit trees would be good, fruit and nut bushes, would be good too... its just the time factor... but I guess I can't expect it to become wonderful all by itself!!! :) I'm going to look into that ground cover too. Oh and to answer the question about where we are, we are in the valley of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We have free range chickens, but they don't go that far back on our property, but I mention that because I DONT want to attract fox or any predators that will kill our chickens. :)

Control of both Scale and Mealybugs is about the same and due care is necesary even when using Insecticidal Soaps since even that can kill off the predators of both. I have never seen a commercially available Insecticidal Soap that needed dilution, all I have seen are ready to use. If you wish to mix your own mix 1 teaspoon of soap (not a detergent, real soap) in 1 quart of water. Real soaps are like Fels Naptha, Ivory, Dr. Bronners, etc. those that are made partly by reacting animal fats with lye. As the link attached indicates most pesticides are ineffective against both of these wee buggers because they have a protective coating that keeps the pesticide from penetrating. Here is a link that might be useful: About Scale and Mealybugs

Hey, you can't have all of this fun without me!! VBG Seriously some of what is being said about piston slap is true. Piston slap alone is NOT a reason to tear an engine down and do a repair. Piston slap is in fact normal on a cold engine because aluminum expands faster than the cast iron engine block. if the piston is tight enough cold, it will be too tight when warmed up. Piston slap should a repair actually be indicated actually does not even mean that a piston needs to be replaced! If the problem is a collapsed skirt, it can in many cases be "knurled" and reshaped to take up the slightly excessive clearance. A knurled piston is one that has many tiny marks made into it's surface, that cause the outer edges of the mark to rise up. Sort of like the way a center punch makes a "crater" in a piece of metal. These two links give both a description of knurling, and an actual application. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knurling http://www.hastingsmfg.com/ServiceTips/international_v8_engines.htm Now the one big problem I have with this thread is the idea that $100 in parts, a saturday, and a twelve pack of beer is all that is required to make the noise go away. I do understand the perception that to the right person pulling and reinstalling a piston isn't difficult to do but the reality is to do it right is in fact much different. This is a job where a very simple mistake can cause a major engine failure after the attempt. Plus if it's 4WD just getting the oil pan off and back on will take up most of your staurday, and that's if you have a hoist. People have been successful simply replacing a piston(s) in chassis but not always successful at eliminating piston noise or slap. That's because the piston is only half of the equation, cylinder wear or taper could easily be coming into play, and I would leave those checks/measurements up to a qualified machinist. Plus we still have the little issue of pressing the piston pin through the rod. Very few shops have the equipment to do that, let alone DIY's. There are many traps lurking in this repair that can make the whole attempt go south in a hurry. One common trap is as simple as not torquing the intake manifold in the correct order! An incorrect torque sequence distorts the engine block, and that changes the line bore of the engine resulting in main bearing/camshaft bearing wear. The $64,000 question from there is, does the resulting wear end up causing the engine to actually fail? Sometimes it does, and sometimes it does not. Lastly, stroke length plays a role in piston slap issues. The longer the stroke, the more often a piston skirt has to be shortened for clearance issues. Cylinder block deck height and other design issues can also impact piston design. The longer that the skirts can be, the less likely it is that piston slap is likely to occur. Although think about it, the longer the skirts, the greater the piston mass and you start impacting engine efficiency due to inertial, and frictional losses. Plus you can impact RPM and horsepower. It's all an intricate dance that even the manufactures are not going to be perfect at every time. That's why we have tolerances, and some things (noises) are allowable even if they are not completely desireable.

Now we have some information to work from. Case history isn't always so critical, but in this case it genuinely is. If we were playing chess, this would compare to a discovered check. When you removed the intake manifold, that allowed the already stressed engine block to relax. Then when you torqued the manifold back down, especially if you didn't use the correct torque sequence, and the very specific torque settings, you pulled the line bore out of spec which causes wear in the main bearings, and it then starves a(the) rod bearing(s). As pro's we have debated the actual cause of the bearing failures after an intake issue for a few years running. Engineers are certain that it is our fault blaming us for failing to torque the intake correctly, and twisting the block. However I suspect the block distorts and contributes to the gasket failure in the first place, and the replacement simply finishes it off. Of course the coolant in the oil does very little to help the situation. To repair this correctly, it needs to be pulled, stripped down and the block, heads, connecting rods, crankshaft all sent out to the machine shop. The block should be line bored (camshaft and crankshaft) and possibly decked. The connecting rods should be re-sized so that the bearings "crush" properly when installed. The heads resurfaced, the valves and seats machined. Then hone the cylinders, fit new rings to the pistons, inspect the camshaft, and see if it is still serviceable. If not the cam and lifters also need replaced. Add a timing chain and a new oil pump and of course, you have completely rebuilt the engine all because it "lost a rod bearing". If here in the shop I attempted to do a bearing slap, and it failed (which there is a 70% or better chance that it will fail) I would then be expected to make it right, and the rebuild is what would be required. The problem is the block has stressed, and now relaxed back into a different shape than it was when it was first built. This causes the crankshaft to be bent when it turns like a drill bit that is being pushed on too hard. Of course the reason the crankshaft is getting bent is because the main bearings don't line up anymore, unfortunately it's not something you can see by eye, and if you pulled the engine and did a crank and bearing kit, without having the line bore corrected you would likely end up with a broken crankshaft somewhere down the road. Now will slapping a set of bearings buy you some time? It's possible, in fact the problems that some engines tolerate instead of them self destructing over is pretty amazing. That simple fact is why people attempt bearing slaps, and occasionally get away with doing so. At the same time when the bearing slaps fail, as this one might, without extensive experience all someone could try to do is attempt to guess if the work wasn't done right.